4 ms·

Yes? Employees should have a vested interest in the financial success of their company, and an ownership stake. That's how it used to be "in the good old days

by tw04 2y ago

Yes? Employees should have a vested interest in the financial success of their company, and an ownership stake. That's how it used to be "in the good old days" when folks had both pensions and stock tying them to the long-term success of the business. That worked quite well prior to robber barons looting and pillaging, declaring bankruptcy, and screwing the workers out of their pensions.

NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
>Employees should have a vested interest in the financial success of their company, and an ownership stake. How do you engineer this, do you think? If every burgerflipper at Wendy's owned stock, the performance of that stock isn't connected to performance of their job at all. They can fuck off completely, and the stock either rises or falls. Even if we tie it not to traded stock, but some sort of profit-sharing of that one franchise, there are 40 or 50 workers, minimum, all of whom have been trained to coast along and hope someone else has to do the real work. One could hope they (and the other workers) would learn that their contribution is essential before it goes out of business, but that's absurdly unrealistic. >That's how it used to be "in the good old days" when folks had both pensions and stock tying them to the long-term success of the business. It was never that way for any significant fraction of the workforce. Sure, if you worked for one of the Fortune 100 companies, already wildly successful. But anyone struggling at their city's papermill or textile mill or whatever, there wasn't stock and pensions. And at the biggest companies, unions managed to wedge their foot in the door to the point that you had UAW workers and the like quitting the week after lunch on Tuesday because they'd made quota. It was good for them, personally, of course, but to the long term detriment of the very businesses that employed them. They too, despite their stock and pensions and vested interest int he financial success of their companies and ownership stakes, just sort of coasted along and let it all fall apart. The grunts, it turns out, are rarely all that interested in their own vesting.
- tw04 2y ago
  >How do you engineer this, do you think? If every burgerflipper at Wendy's owned stock, the performance of that stock isn't connected to performance of their job at all. They can fuck off completely, and the stock either rises or falls. Even if we tie it not to traded stock, but some sort of profit-sharing of that one franchise, there are 40 or 50 workers, minimum, all of whom have been trained to coast along and hope someone else has to do the real work. One could hope they (and the other workers) would learn that their contribution is essential before it goes out of business, but that's absurdly unrealistic. That's not really true at all. If they fuck off completely, they're either getting fired, or if everyone at the store takes the same stance, the store closes entirely. If enough stores close, the stock dips. I'd counter with: what's stopping them from fucking off right now when they don't have stock? Why would stock inherently make them more likely to fuck off? Just like executives, the stock would vest over a period of time. And clearly nobody is talking about giving $500k in stock to a person making $5/hr. It is commensurate to their salary. >It was never that way for any significant fraction of the workforce. Sure, if you worked for one of the Fortune 100 companies, already wildly successful. But anyone struggling at their city's paperkill or textile mill or whatever, there wasn't stock and pensions. And at the biggest companies, unions managed to wedge their foot in the door to the point that you had UAW workers and the like quitting the week after lunch on Tuesday because they'd made quota. It was good for them, personally, of course, but to the long term detriment of the very businesses that employed them. They too, despite their stock and pensions and vested interest int he financial success of their companies and ownership stakes, just sort of coasted along and let it all fall apart. This literally didn't happen, and I find it laughable you're portraying unions as a horrible blight on the working man. You might want to go a bit further back into history and look at what the factory conditions were like prior to unionization. If you think that would've just naturally occurred without unions, you're delusional, and need to look at all the non-unionized places we've outsourced manufacturing to, and what their work life looks like. Hint: exactly like it was in the US prior to unionization. Then take a look at unionized manufacturing economies in Europe. Hint: they didn't get that standard of living because businesses just thought it was the right thing to do. But in summary, your argument appears to be: people are lazy, and if you give them more they'll just stop trying. Which might be one of the most absurd takes I've ever heard on the subject.
  - sokoloff 2y ago
    GP didn’t claim that the ownership of some stock caused the burger flippers to fuck off. They instead claimed that whether or not they individually did, that it didn’t make the stock move one way or the other.
- gosub100 2y ago
  You withhold the shares until after a waiting period. You stay a year and don't screw up royally, you get invited to the employee participation program. Imagine that? Give the poor something to look forward to? Preposterous, right?
  - p_l 2y ago
    And then they give that stock price is mostly vibes based had little relation to performance, and it's unreliable monopoly money unless you happen to own a lot of it so it can be collateral in a loan. Additionally stock based compensation creates incentives to work towards raising the stock price not actually performance. All of that is why back when Hewlett-Packard was still run by Hewlett and Packard they banned stock plans and instead introduced profit sharing

by tw04 2y ago

NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago

>Employees should have a vested interest in the financial success of their company, and an ownership stake. How do you engineer this, do you think? If every burgerflipper at Wendy's owned stock, the performance of that stock isn't connected to performance of their job at all. They can fuck off completely, and the stock either rises or falls. Even if we tie it not to traded stock, but some sort of profit-sharing of that one franchise, there are 40 or 50 workers, minimum, all of whom have been trained to coast along and hope someone else has to do the real work. One could hope they (and the other workers) would learn that their contribution is essential before it goes out of business, but that's absurdly unrealistic. >That's how it used to be "in the good old days" when folks had both pensions and stock tying them to the long-term success of the business. It was never that way for any significant fraction of the workforce. Sure, if you worked for one of the Fortune 100 companies, already wildly successful. But anyone struggling at their city's papermill or textile mill or whatever, there wasn't stock and pensions. And at the biggest companies, unions managed to wedge their foot in the door to the point that you had UAW workers and the like quitting the week after lunch on Tuesday because they'd made quota. It was good for them, personally, of course, but to the long term detriment of the very businesses that employed them. They too, despite their stock and pensions and vested interest int he financial success of their companies and ownership stakes, just sort of coasted along and let it all fall apart. The grunts, it turns out, are rarely all that interested in their own vesting.

tw04 2y ago
>How do you engineer this, do you think? If every burgerflipper at Wendy's owned stock, the performance of that stock isn't connected to performance of their job at all. They can fuck off completely, and the stock either rises or falls. Even if we tie it not to traded stock, but some sort of profit-sharing of that one franchise, there are 40 or 50 workers, minimum, all of whom have been trained to coast along and hope someone else has to do the real work. One could hope they (and the other workers) would learn that their contribution is essential before it goes out of business, but that's absurdly unrealistic. That's not really true at all. If they fuck off completely, they're either getting fired, or if everyone at the store takes the same stance, the store closes entirely. If enough stores close, the stock dips. I'd counter with: what's stopping them from fucking off right now when they don't have stock? Why would stock inherently make them more likely to fuck off? Just like executives, the stock would vest over a period of time. And clearly nobody is talking about giving $500k in stock to a person making $5/hr. It is commensurate to their salary. >It was never that way for any significant fraction of the workforce. Sure, if you worked for one of the Fortune 100 companies, already wildly successful. But anyone struggling at their city's paperkill or textile mill or whatever, there wasn't stock and pensions. And at the biggest companies, unions managed to wedge their foot in the door to the point that you had UAW workers and the like quitting the week after lunch on Tuesday because they'd made quota. It was good for them, personally, of course, but to the long term detriment of the very businesses that employed them. They too, despite their stock and pensions and vested interest int he financial success of their companies and ownership stakes, just sort of coasted along and let it all fall apart. This literally didn't happen, and I find it laughable you're portraying unions as a horrible blight on the working man. You might want to go a bit further back into history and look at what the factory conditions were like prior to unionization. If you think that would've just naturally occurred without unions, you're delusional, and need to look at all the non-unionized places we've outsourced manufacturing to, and what their work life looks like. Hint: exactly like it was in the US prior to unionization. Then take a look at unionized manufacturing economies in Europe. Hint: they didn't get that standard of living because businesses just thought it was the right thing to do. But in summary, your argument appears to be: people are lazy, and if you give them more they'll just stop trying. Which might be one of the most absurd takes I've ever heard on the subject.
- sokoloff 2y ago
  GP didn’t claim that the ownership of some stock caused the burger flippers to fuck off. They instead claimed that whether or not they individually did, that it didn’t make the stock move one way or the other.
gosub100 2y ago
You withhold the shares until after a waiting period. You stay a year and don't screw up royally, you get invited to the employee participation program. Imagine that? Give the poor something to look forward to? Preposterous, right?
- p_l 2y ago
  And then they give that stock price is mostly vibes based had little relation to performance, and it's unreliable monopoly money unless you happen to own a lot of it so it can be collateral in a loan. Additionally stock based compensation creates incentives to work towards raising the stock price not actually performance. All of that is why back when Hewlett-Packard was still run by Hewlett and Packard they banned stock plans and instead introduced profit sharing